Obama's Stimulus Plan

     Obama's proposed stimulus plan plans to jolt different aspects of the economy. Firstly, his plan highlights cutting payroll taxes by almost half and also cutting taxes for companies hiring long-term unemployed people. Obama also wishes to spend money on improvement of public schools and community colleges as well as a project for rebuilding homes, called "Project Rebuild". As for the long-term unemployed (nearly 43% of the unemployed) Obama wishes to extend unemployment benefits. He also wishes to subsidize job training for a stronger work-force.
    The ideas proposed all support a stronger economy in the long run. Even though the plan will not help the current dept crisis very much, in the long run Obama's plan will inject money back into the economy because of the larger-scale employment rate he envisions. Specifically, increasing unemployment benefits will help people get back on their feet while they search for a job and will encourage them to not give up, therefore not falling out of the unemployment census. As for the amount of jobs available, the government spending money on new infrastructure such as improvement of schools and colleges, would not only increase jobs needed in the short run such as construction work but also in the long run because more teachers will be demanded. I agree with Obama supporting employing the long-term unemployed because these people are more likely to give up searching for a job and create more problems to society such as an increase in crime rates. People who have been searching for a job for a shorter period of time, will still have a chance to be employed just as much as the long-term unemployed.



Information from: http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/08/news/economy/obama_stimulus_plan/index.htm?iid=EAL

Intro - What I Know, How I Know It

Previously in IB1 Econ, we studied a variety of topics from microeconomics to macro and international. Personally I didn't think economics would be a course that would be the most interesting to me, but slowly throughout the year it became one of my favorite classes. I liked how the class worked, we would take notes on definitions and economics concepts on the board, listen to real-life examples and get thorough instructions on how to write the IB exams and what to expect from it. We based our unit tests on the actual IB exams which, although quite tedious, I found very helpful.
For my IB2 year, I want to finish learning the rest of the IB required economic concepts and continue practising exam responses (focusing a little more on data-responce questions). Although I wont be studying pure economics at a university level, I am pretty sure I will take a few econ-business related classes in the near future. I hope to continue learning economics at the speed and level that I am comfortable with and be sufficiently prepared for my May exams.